Agencies failing to assist small business in regulation compliance. (Washington Alert).A recent report issued by the General Accounting. Office (GAO) states that federal agencies responsible for developing the greatest volume of new regulations during the past administration failed to produce Congressionally-mandated guides to help small firms understand and comply with their rules. Under the Small Business Regulatory reg·u·late tr.v. reg·u·lat·ed, reg·u·lat·ing, reg·u·lates 1. To control or direct according to rule, principle, or law. 2. Enforcement Fairness Act (SBREFA SBREFA Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act ), federal agencies are required to simplify the language of federal regulations and develop more practical sources of information on regulatory and reporting requirements to assist small businesses. As part of that law, agencies must produce compliance guides for each rule or group of new rules that are projected to create a significant economic impact on small firms. GAO undertook its study to assess compliance of the federal agencies with SBREFA, The study looked at regulations for calendar years 1999 and 2000 from the following agencies: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Noun 1. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - an agency in the Department of Commerce that maps the oceans and conserves their living resources; predicts changes to the earth's environment; provides weather reports and forecasts floods and hurricanes and ; Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), previously known as the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA), is a federal agency within the United States Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) that administers the Medicare program and ; the. Food and Drug Administration; EPA EPA eicosapentaenoic acid. EPA abbr. eicosapentaenoic acid EPA, n.pr See acid, eicosapentaenoic. EPA, n. ; the Federal Communications Commission Federal Communications Commission (FCC), independent executive agency of the U.S. government established in 1934 to regulate interstate and foreign communications in the public interest. ; and the Securities and Exchange Commission. In the report (GAO-02-172), GAO investigators determined that SBREFA does not "appear to have had much of an impact in the agencies and years that we examined, and implementation [of the law] has varied across and sometimes within the agencies." Moreover, the GAO found that none of the agencies in our review provided us with guidance documents that met all of the statutory requirements for all of their 1999 and 2000 final rules that they said were covered by SBREFA." Both the House and Senate Small Business committees have indicated plans to hold hearings on the GAO study and its conclusions. |
|
||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion